Dental appliance.



-Batented Dec. 6, 1910.

WITNESSES:

Arm/mm LLOYD G. MORGAN, OF EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY.

DENTAL APPLIANCE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 6, 1910.

Application filed March 28, 1910. Serial No. 551,876.

To all whom 'it may concern:

Be it known that I, LLOYD G. MORGAN, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of East Orange, in the county of Essex and State of New Jersey, have invented a new and Improved Dental Appliance, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description. j

My invention relates to dental appliances, my more particular purpose being to provide means for exerting a gentle tension upon a tooth, in a direction contrary to that of a working pressure exerted temporarily upon the tooth by action of a drill or other implement in the hand of a dentist.

More particularly stated, I provide a plate with an opening to be brought into registry with a. tooth, and further provide said plate with means for its own support upon opposite sides of the tooth, and also provide devices controllable at will, for gradually lifting or prying the plate away from the tooth; so that the tooth, being connected with the plate by aid of a ligament or other suitable fastening, is subjected to a gentle tension, this tension being so directed that when a drill is applied to a tooth it opposes such tension. The purpose of this arrangement is to relieve the patient of unnecessary pain. Ordinarily where the tooth is to be drilled, the dentist applies the drill bit directly to the tooth and by operating a dental engine connected with the drill bit proceeds to bear directly into the tooth. The pressure from the drill is considerable, and if, as is often the case, the tooth be ulcerated, the slight displacement of the tooth, due to pressure of the drill, causes great suffering. What I purpose doing, therefore, is to support the tooth against this pressure, and I even go a little further and slightly raise the tooth-that is, pry it slightly outward, or at least press it slightly in an. arbitrary direction, this direction being as near as practicable contrary to the working pressure of the drill bit.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification, in which similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the figures.

Figure 1 is a perspective, showing one form of my improved dental appliance; Fig. 2 is an enlarged cross section through one of the saddles and the shoe carried by it; Fig. 3 is a fragmentary elevation, showing the mechanism appearing in Fig. l as applied to a set of teeth; and Fig. at is a perspective showing another form of my improved device.

A plate 5 is provided with a downwardly projecting tongue 6 and with two saddles, all of these parts being integral. The saddles are separated by an opening 5 The tongue 6 is provided with graduated holes 8 through which a ligament 10 may be passed and connected with a tooth 10*, as indicated in Fig. 3. Two shoes 9, each having a general arcuate form in cross section, are mounted within the saddles 7, the gen eral arrangement being shown in Fig. 2. The saddles 7 being of arcuate form and the shoes 9 being of a smaller diameter, these parts are concentric to each other. Each shoe 9 is carried by a screw 11 having a milled nut 12 and provided with a swivel 13 for suspending the shoe. At 10 are two of the patients teeth, and upon these two teeth the shoes 9 are rested while the device is in use.

The operation of the mechanism shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3 is as follows: The device is placed in the patients mouth and the two shoes 9 are fitted upon two teeth 10 as indicated in Fig. 3. The tongue 6 now extends downwardly and close to a tooth 10, this being the diseased tooth upon which work is to be done. The ligament 10, or some equivalent fastening, is now passed through the holes 8 and around the diseased tooth 10 being tied or otherwise secured, so as to fasten this tooth firmly, yet in a sense yieldingly, to the tongue 6. The operator now turns the two milled heads 12, thereby rotating the screws 11 and slowly raising the saddles 7. This must be done carefully, of course, as undue rotation of the screws might cause the diseased tooth to be displaced to too great an extent and thereby become loosened or even dislodged or extracted. The diseased tooth 1O being thus subjected to a proper degree of tension, or, in other words, being slightly raised according to Fig. 3, the dentist applies the drill bit, or other appliance, directly to the diseased tooth and begins work upon the latter. The upward pressure of the diseased tooth, due to up ward pull of the ligament 10 and the tongue 6 to which this ligament is connected, does not cause suffering,

or at least, the pain is drill is applied for a comparatively long interval of time. In general, however, it is best to so adjust the parts that the displacement 01": the tooth by the ligament I0 is not particularly painful.

The form shown in Fig. t differs slightly from that shown in the other figures. A plate 14 is provided with a central" opening 15 and with extending portions 16. Screws 1'7 provided with milled heads 18 are extended through holes 19 and are adapted to rest directly upon the crowns or outer portions of the patients teeth. The plate 14 isfurther provided with tongues 20 integral with it, these tongues having holes 21 through them. The holes are for the purpose of enabling the operator to pass a ligament or thread and to lace or tie this thread directly to the tooth to be operated upon. As there are several holes 19, and as the screws 17 are removable, the screws may be adjusted to some extent by inserting them through the diiierent holes in order to bring them into registry with the crowns of teeth adjacent to the diseased tooth to be operated upon. The device shown in Fig. 4 is operated in much the same manner as that shown in the other figures, the chief difference being that the screws 17 do not carry shoes and are rested directly upon the crowns of the teeth.

In both forms of the device I employ a plate provided with a central opening and also employ means for displacing the plate relatively to the tooth to be operated upon. Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. A device of the character described, comprising a member to be connected with a tooth to be operated upon, means for securing said member to said tooth, and mechanism including a screw for slightly moving said member and said tooth in a direction coinciding with that in which the tooth extends.

2. A device of the character described,

, comprising a member provided with means for supporting it upon a plurality of teeth,

said member being further provided with a central opening registering with another tooth to be operated upon, means for c011- necting said member with said tooth to be operated upon, and mechanism controllable at will" tor gradually moving said member relatively to the teeth upon which it is supported.

3. The combination of a plate provided with tongues and with a central opening between said tongues, and further provided with portions extending in opposite directions from said central opening, said lastmentioned portions having holes, and screws extending through said holes and movable from one hole to the other, said screws being revoluble for the purpose of raising said plate relatively to a tooth registering with said central opel'iing.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification n the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

LLOYD MORGAN.

Vitnesses Myron HARRISON, PHILIP D. RoLLHAUs. 

